Month: January 2006

mod_rewrite deep magic followup

Turns out the solution isn’t to use mod_rewrite at all, but instead to use mod_redirect. Maybe not as efficient, but simple, clean and even I can understand what’s going on:

Redirect /blogs/pt/index.xml http://xcski.com/blogs/pt/feed/
Redirect /blogs/pt/index.rdf http://xcski.com/blogs/pt/feed/

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /blogs/pt/
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /blogs/pt/index.php

</IfModule>

mod_rewrite is deep magic

When I moved this blog from MovableType to WordPress, the rss feed urls changed. Since I didn’t want the livejournal syndication to break, I put in mod_rewrite RewriteRules to redirect those feed urls. When I upgraded to WordPress 2.0, what had been an extremely long .htaccess became just a few lines long, and all the fancy stuff that they used to do in .htaccess with mod_rewrite are now evidently done in index.php itself. So I’m trying to figure out how to insert new RewriteRules to do what I did before, but everything I try either does nothing, or it causes the whole blog to break with a message in the error.log file saying “mod_rewrite: maximum number of internal redirects reached. Assuming configuration error.”

Here is the existing .htaccess:

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /blogs/pt/
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /blogs/pt/index.php
</IfModule>

I would have thought that adding the following would be sufficient:

RewriteRule index.rdf /blogs/pt/feed/
RewriteRule index.xml /blogs/pt/feed/

or possibly, since /feed/ is evidently going to be passed to index.php as arguments, like this:

RewriteRule index.rdf /blogs/pt/index.php?&feed
RewriteRule index.xml /blogs/pt/index.php?&feed

I also tried with [L] and/or [R] conditions. No luck.

I’d like to get all those syndicators working again. If you have any suggestions, please leave a comment or drop me an email.

Getting there

When the Google Maps API was announced, David Megginson publically challenged me and other programmers to come up with a decent flight planning application that used it. Well, it’s not here yet, but RunwayFinder – a flight planning tool for pilots is getting closer. At least it’s a decent substitute for the “Nearest Airports” search in AirNav – you put in an airport id and it shows the ones in the neighbourhood as well.

Vacation update

I had a bunch of plans for the vacation.  Some of them actually got done.

Goals:

  • Spend time with my daughter, step-daughters and wife (partial credit – probably could have done better, but it was great to have Liane here for the first time in years even just to hang out, and we did a few fun things.)
  • Finish reading “Ajax In Action” (partial credit – read the first 10 of 13 chapters and Appendix A.)
  • Reimplement the “progress report” part of the navaid.com web site so that instead of re-drawing the entire page every 10 seconds it just grabs the actual count that’s changed and puts it into an appropriate div.  (Not even started.)
  • Add some more design notes to the NavData wiki. (Not done.)
  • Import some of the user data files I’ve been sent into the navaid.com web sites. (I did a couple, Brazil, Argentina and the UK, but I’ve got a couple more to do.)
  • Finish Half Life 2 which I got last Christmas.  I stopped last January when I had some video card problems.  (Played for 15 minutes, got to Ravenholm, got violently motion sick and stopped.)
  • Get some flying in. (Didn’t get a single day without low ceilings.)

I probably get a failing grade for that.